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Movie Review: The Maze Runner

Before seeing The Maze Runner, I knew that the movie was based on the best-selling dystopian novel, but I had not read the novel; I actually never got the chance to watch the trailer, too. The plot of the film is quickly understood, though, and it ended up being a very good, Hunger Games-esque movie.

Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) wakes up in a box in the middle of a field, with no memory of how he got there, or even his name. A group of boys in the field pulls him out of the box, and promptly give him the nickname of "Greenie." The boys, and now Thomas, live in this field, and only a few of them, called "runners," dare to enter the stone walls of the giant maze, which surrounds the field. Some of the boys, like Gally (Will Poulter), have been living in the field for almost three years now; once a month, like clockwork, the box appears from the ground with supplies and a new person. Thomas is frustrated that the boys have been there for so long and no one has found a way out of the maze yet, and he decides to take it upon himself to figure out the way to escape the maze.

This movie sucks you in to the plot rather quickly, and it was also more violent than I expected. I'd describe it as Lord of the Flies meets Hunger Games, albeit a Hunger Games with participants who don't entirely know the rules of the game they are playing. The Flies dynamic goes topsy-turvy when a girl shows up in the box one day, however, with a note that reads something like "SHE'S THE LAST." You can quickly figure out that someone or something is controlling the boys' lives in the field, but whomever or whatever that is is not revealed until the end of the movie.

Yes, definitely see this film. I will say that I heard that the book is better (as it usually is), but the movie has inspired me to read it sometime soon. The ending of the film is a little ambiguous, as well, because the books are part of a trilogy; according to Wikipedia, the second movie, The Scorch Trials, will start filming this fall if this installment does well at the box office. I hope that the movie does some high numbers, since I would quite like to see a sequel - fans of the book should turn out for it, or fans of the actors, as there are a few well-known actors attached (O'Brien is from The Internship; Poulter from the recent We're the Millers; and Thomas Brodie-Sangster from Love Actually, among other films).

Even if you haven't read the book and don't know any of the actors involved, if you're looking for an intelligent sci-fi/dystopian movie to see this fall, I highly recommend The Maze Runner.

The Maze Runner is in theaters today, September 19th, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 113 minutes. 4.5 stars out of 5.

Hmm, I am just not a fan of this current dystopian turn in movies and books. I suppose it's like all of the books in the 60ies and 70ies that looked to the future we are living now. Great review though- as always.

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